…And Easter continues to continue! Today’s rabbits are truly bottom-of-the-barrel beasties. Take this guy for example.

At least I assume he’s a guy, he’s blue. The long eyelashes are a bit of a nod toward androgyny. The whiskers made of push-pins are a bit of a nod toward insanity. Overall, this is the face of a rabbit that has stared into the brink of madness and taken photos.

You kind of have to take it on faith that this is a rabbit. The ears add a bit of context. One fun thing about this particular basket? If you put “peeps” in it, they try to escape through the mesh holes. True story.

If the first one is a “before,” this poor creature is the “after.” Let’s just root around in here and see what the trouble is. Oh, I see the problem–you’re filled with jelly beans! We’ll just pick out all the bad colors.

That’s one heck of a buck tooth you’ve got there, princess. And the huge, catlike eyes are…different. It looks like spiders are trying to escape your corneas. It’s sad when the fact that you have a pop-top cranial cavity is actually one of the more normal things about you. Please don’t jump up and down too much though, something might fall off.

…well, what’s not to love here? The hideous pink eye? The stump of an arm? Or the strange yellow bile coughed up over a dress that accessorizes far, far too well with strange yellow bile? Maybe it’s the way she’s staring at you. She’s preparing a hug. For you. A sticky hug. Happy Easter.

Drink deeply from the basket of Easter. Join us. Join us in hunger and rage and strange, amorphous pantsuits and airbrushed dresses. Stain your muzzle in the juice of Easters past. Some say it’s a basket of fruit, but we say it’s…vengeance.

Blue bunny basket and hideous Easter ooze: Goodwill on 2222 and Lamar. Screwtop ziplock easter bunny and bunnies with basket of…red…from Goodwill on Stassney and Manchacha.

But first, bunnies gone wild!

Easter’s over, and this bunny likes to kick back, relax, and wait for the party. Kids, this is what too many red jellybeans will do to you…just say no!

If that particular Easter rabbit is too relaxed, too carefree, too “centerfold from Rabbit Fancy,” maybe you’d prefer these bunnybots.

Do you see the similarity? Separated at birth?

These could easily be advanced robots sent out to explore a planet before its taken over and terraformed with fluffy plastic grass and baby chickens. The cyberbunnies roll in on their strange tank-tread feet and subdue all hostile or rebellious life forms with their giant energy pitchforks and flechette rakes. Fear them. The Hundred Acre Woods fell to their insidious pogrom—are we next?

We bring you Easter Greetings, pathetic earth monkeys!

The next morning, Isabella’s horselike body was found drained of blood, a strange, bucktooth-shaped mark in the soft, pale, somewhat dull flesh of her neck. Her body, and the pellets.

“Do you hear them? The children of the night? What beautiful music to they make.”

“Uh…I I give up.”

“I’m sorry?”

“What music dothey make? I didn’t know they even talked. Maybe they chirp a little? Or squeak?”

“I can’t do this if you keep breaking the mood.”

“Oh, ‘kay. Carry on.”

When the bunny lords DO sweep in to take over the planet, they do it in style. Bunny style. Which is strangely Victorian, yet brightly colored.

“Fire the second head!”

Booom! (quack)

Now this…this is luxury. An easy drive through your conquered lands in your egg-chariot, waving at the plebians in the egg-mines. And if anyone tries to resist, blast them with an explosive duck head. It’s a tragedy that you only have two shots.

Only junior will live to tell the story to your servants, and may they be sympathetic to his plight.

I’m guessing this was some sort of modular, DIY paint job kit. There’s some circumstantial evidence. For one, the missing duck heads, unless they actually WERE launched across the Goodwill, but I should have found them in the dried flowers. Sorry, no duck. But here, check out the rest of the bunny.

Detatchable ears? Awesome pen-holder? Screw-in light set? Gas valve (and if so, how big do they get?) Will we ever know?

Easy Bunny from Salvation Army near 620 and 183, Fire the Duck Cannon! from the Goodwill next door. Wooden bunny bots from the GW on 2222 and Lamar, blank bunny bots and pink-eyed vampire bunnies from the Goodwill on Metric and 183.

…Oh spirit of Easters yet to come, I fear you most of all.

There is a chance I only have part of the puzzle here. It may be that there was a series of rabbits meant to represent the holidays, and this was the “old new year.” Perhaps there was an all-bunny version of Piers Anthony’s “Incarnations of Immortality” that ran on Cartoon Network for four weeks before it got canned—probably because they ran it next to Spongebob Squarepants, and the two shows were just too cerebral for the after-school demographic.

But I really like to think that, for some half-crazed ceramic artist somewhere, Death takes the form of a one-eared rabbit clutching an hourglass. Or maybe the reason that it’s only got one ear is that it’s actually a sundial, and as the sun moves overhead, the shadows move around the hem of the rabbit’s robes, telling you that, enigmatically, it’s slit-hem o’clock, and that probably means it’s time to take the pills the nice lady left you.

The missing ear was the seconds hand.

“Holy balls!”

The easter bunny stumbles back in shocked horror as the massive, slobbering, St. Bernard stumbled toward her. Bits of egg and cheap chocolate flecked its muzzle, and second-rate marshmallow foam mixed with the rabid froth drippind down its jowels. It lurched forward, wondering if, when the rabbit stopped screaming, the throbbing ache in its head would die with it.

In the back, an Indian looked on fatly and passively. She knew all the steps of this dance, for she had seen the end of this story on IMDB, and that which was fortold could not be postponed.

….Easter does strange things to a man.

It’s probably the messed-up chemicals in the “chocolate.” Which is actually an exotic distillate of benzene and certain heavy metals, with a bit of potassium and some tar to make it turn brown, guar gum for texture, and parrafin wax for bulk. After a couple hits of that heady cocktail, ANYONE would fall back in their PJs, eyes tiny points of madness, and wait for the ride to end.

Odd thing about this particular piece of “art”—notice that the ears are the same color as the head. I’m thinking this isn’t so much a cute costume as a way to hide his monstrous deformity, and his parents let him out to see the light of day only on Easter, Halloween, and that furry convention every August.

He’s used that basement time to weave a clever basket out of 12 years of his own hair clippings. It’s good to do crafty things when you’ve got a few spare hours.

Shocked bunny and Grim Rabbit of Inle from Savers on South Lamar. Rabbit boy with cheap moustache from Salvation Army on Metric near Peyton Gin, and “BABY” from Goodwill on 2222, Austin.

I knew I was supposed to do something today…what was it? Something…something…Ach, it’s going to be hanging over my head all day!

One of my favorite things about the “Last Supper” picture is how it looks like one of the Marys has grabbed a camera, and everybody’s squeezing to get into the shot—that, and how everyone’s sitting on one side of the table. It’s like God himself staged a publicity shot. It’s a wonder none of the disciples is putting a “rabbit ears” on Peter, they were always ragging on him.

Frankly, though, the entire thing looks a little claustrophobic. It would be a LOT easier to fit everyone at the table if they were one amorphous lump of flesh.

I’m just saying.

One thing that a lot of people did not know about the last supper—but when you think about it, it makes a lot of sense, what with the extremely high Hebrew content of the evening—was that it was actually bagels. And small rocks.

There weren’t a lot of takers on the small rocks. And this horrible, awkward silence when Jesus said, “This is my body.” And Simon said, “Oh really? Which part?” And usually Jesus is really good on the snappy comebacks, but he was having a bad evening, and just shook his head sadly. The evening kind of went downhill then.

It’s also not widely known that fully half the disciples were conjoined twins.

They wore thick heavy scarves to disguise the fact that they had vestigial heads wobbling on their shoulders. Sometimes three, four heads. Scary stuff.

Mind you, not everybody brought their extra heads. Bartholomew left his head at home. He totally didn’t get into the multicerebral spirit of the thing. It was supposed to be a big surprise for Jesus, everybody’d leap out and say “SURPRISE!!! Two-head party!”

And SOME people didn’t get the updated memorandum, the one that said the theme was “vestigial heads” and not “cheesy 1940s werewolves.” And then Matthew started copping an attitude about the whole thing, said that Simon kept changing plan at the last minute, he was ALWAYS changing the plan at the last minute, and Judas left in a pissy huff, which was really it. Thaddeus was going to take Jesus out for breakfast, but he disappeared, and the next time anyone saw him was Easter and all the restaurants are totally full after church, PARTICULARLY on Easter. It was generally agreed…there had been better Fridays.

Last Supper from Texas Thrift, near 51st and I35. Frustrated Jesus Glowers on Chair from 183 and Metric Goodwill.

I was going to spend the entire week putting up my entire hoard of Jesuses. Then I considered my target audience, who are clearly on some pretty odd chemicals if they’re still reading this. So, I bow to their refined sensibilities, and present…this thing.

For a long time, I thought it was some sort of strange bent flower vase, with a weird baby motif. Or maybe H.R. Giger’s incense burner. Then someone took me aide and gently explained the birds and the bongs. And a story unfolded, of another failed high school art project, totally creeped-out high school art teacher, and the frustration of the amateur bong-maker. Or, bongateur.

Ironically, while the entire thing is covered with holes, the only intentional one is clogged with glaze :(

Which is why my first theory of the incense burner from the third circle of hell made more sense. That would make it some sort of strange, smoking unicorn-baby hybrid. The whole “drug paraphernalia” thing was actually kind of a let-down, it seemed too reasonable.

I’m thinking, though, that this would be a very bad trip. You’d be worried that the strange, pale, sluglike baby-faces that were peeking around the bottom of your white knuckles…accusingly…pleadingly…were going to start talking to you. Or worse, singing.

Friday, back to Jesus. He’ll be a welcome change from the pale, singing slug-babies.

from the Goodwill near 620 and 183, Austin

Well, they do. And sometimes you just have to tell the world, using a simple woodburning kit and a block of leftover oak. In the artist’s defense (I don’t know the artist, but let’s just call her “Marjorie”) this was probably one of a number of “projects” you could do at camp. But what kind of a camp, you ask? Girl scouts? West New Brunswick interregional woodburners and handicrafts camp? No, this is a black tie affair.

In my imagination, which is a beautiful place, I’m seeing upper-level executives taking a few precious moments out of their six-figure lives to string together some pony beads and represent for the Lamb of God. After Marjorie got into her limousine, she had a brief, heated argument with her chauffer.

“Jeeves, hang this on the rear view mirror.”
“No, Mrs. G., it’s a five-pound block of oak.”
“Hang it. Do you know who I AM?”
“I do know who you are, Mrs. G.”
“And do you know how important I am?”
“I know you came back from VIP camp, and just like last year, you bring back a five pound block of wood on a piece of yarn and ask me to hang it on the mirror. And last time, you know, it broke and killed the dog.”
“I had a dog?”
“You did, Mrs. G.”
“Oh…I remember…he was the only creature that was happy to see me.”
“That’s not true, Mrs. G., and you know it.”
“But he’s dead, Jeeves. Now I haven’t got anyone.”
“Mrs. G., you just turn that block of wood around, and you tell me you don’t have anyone.”
“…thank you, Jeeves.”
“Mrs G., it’s not me you should be thanking.”

Aaaanyway! This is Jesus’s big week, so it’s good to give him some time in the sunlight! Let him out of your pocket and into the big, wide world!

I’m pretty sure Jesus has looked better than this. But this time of year, everything’s a little crazy. Including Jesus.

As far as I can tell, Mary, flies in from outer space on a flying rose-stuffed taco, powered exclusively by high-octane, 90,000-horsepower messiah. The awesomest part is the way it does not in any way mess up either her hair or her halo, though I really think the whole experience massively freaks out Jesus. He’s got that “Jumping me on a pogo stick!” expression that I get when I’m driving anywhere in Austin at 3:30. Mary, though, she’s cool.

I’m not sure how the bracelet and Jesus relate to each other. Jesus is clearly doing the blessing, albeit at a very fast, frantic pace. Who’s the blessed? If you wear this poster as a wrist-bangle, are YOU blessed? Or does the lady re-shelving the coffee mugs give you an angry glare?

The latter, unfortunately.

So, before you go into Holy Week and the fun-filled, crazy roller coaster before Easter, remember this one, important thing:

Jesus is much, MUCH bigger than you, and he likes to walk around with his eyes closed. Don’t let him trip over your scale model of an illudium phosdex molecule. Cripers. Clean this place up.

“Everybody Needs Jesus” block from Goodwill on 183 and Metric. Weird Madonna picture from 2222 and Lamar Goodwill, and the Godzilla-Jesus from the new Goodwill in Oak Hill, which is a great store, try to make it there if you can!

It’s been a while since we’ve talked about puppies. Let’s fix that. Let’s have a puppy moment.

Are you going to eat that? Are you? Maybe you should just put that plate down. You know you want to. Maybe just a few fries. Nice and low, like on the floor. Don’t worry, they’ll be fine. Would this face lie?

That’s exactly like what my dog looks like when I go roller skating while holding two roast turkeys. Or a pretzel. Or really anything vaguely edible. The careful placement between two glasses is a clever camoflage…put the food on me…I am really a dinner plate, I only LOOK like a dog…and to be fair, not much like a dog…

Now, onward to squirrels.

This squirrel is making me distinctly uncomfortable. I’m trying to imagine what it would look like if it was actually in use. First, it’d be on its side, and filled with nuts. This may be, on the surface, pretty much squirrel “dream come true,” but they’re not inside him like “oh, that was a great bowl of nuts, what’s for dessert? More nuts? Don’t mind if I do!” but inside like “scoop the internal cavity out, fill with almonds.” Not pleasant.

And then you’d ram two pecan-winklers and a pair of second-rate, chrome-covered pliers into him. It’s like Excalibur on a tiny, comical scale. “Whosoever pulleth out pecan-winkler ‘Excalibur’ from this squirrel shall reign as king…of nuts.”

And yet, somehow, he keeps smiling. And unless his teeth are foam-rubber, that’s got to hurt. I admire his dedicated to mirth even when his teeth are shoved widdershin by an uncrackable acorn. There may be something…special…mixed with his nuts. I hope it’s codine.

Dreadfully focused dog from Goodwill on Stassney and Manchacha. Weirdly happy squirrel from Goodwill on Parmer near I35.

So…I’ve been sitting on this one for a while, mostly because I have no idea how to begin. The artist’s intent is clearly inhabiting some rarified level of the atmosphere which we are unlikely to ever see, for which, I think, I am grateful. Of course, there’s the smallest chance that the deepest meaning one can extract from some pieces is “ooh, I have a new copy of Photoshop!” I rather fear that’s where we are now.

In this particular artist’s defense, at least I can vaguely understand what’s being represented. We are clearly dealing with an old man, or possibly a grossly distorted piece of produce, something from the “spud” family. With most thrift art, the whole “or it may be a potato” is always a possibility, even on a good day, so we just won’t address that. No, we are clearly up against “old man dreaming of the past.” And what a past!

When I am an old man, I hope I have something better to fill my daydreams with than gross anatomical distortions. The strangely melty woman at the left looks very much like the cover model for Communion. But don’t hold that against her. Or him, he’s lifed a long and active life. I think it might have also involved giant one-celled organisms drifting like zeppelin through a gentle, pervasive mist, toward an apparition of “Our Lady of the Slightly Distended Corgi.” And then there was a rooster in there somewhere. Because, y’know, roosters. Like you do.

“We bring you…love?”

And this…I’m not sure if it’s a haunting memory or Startling Evidence.

If we only understood what was going through his ancient, twisted mind, we’d know where the bodies really are.

Savers on North Lamar, Austin

Saint Thuribaldi Alphonso Sparkletoes (1278 AD-1322 AD) is only a recent addition to the hagiography, his contribution to the church hasn’t been recognized until the last few years, when the Holy See finally got a sense for footwear and a well-turned heel.

Sparkletoes was beatified only a few years after his death—clearly his death was martyrdom in service to the church, as he was killed during his efforts to spread the faith to an encampment of Roman pedicurists who occupied Sant’ Agnese fuori le Mura, changing the old church from a temple to a foot spa—death by nail clipper is a slow, terrible way to go.

Turn around, Thuribaldi, let’s see your pretty face.

Here we can see St. Sparkletoes holding many of his traditional relics and insignia. Of course, he’s wearing his traditional magenta lipstick, rouge, and nail polish, which shows how faith in and adoration of God can conceal our base nature. Under his arm we see his traditional towel and pedicure pillow, which, in the Mass of St. Sparkletoes, show how even the most humble of things can be raised up in celebration. Like, toes.

Traditionally, he is shown holding a foam toe separator sponge, or sometimes a rolled up piece of paper towel, to keep us mindful of the strict life of discipline observed by both the monastic soul and pedicurist. However, it is often misinterpreted as a rolled bread or dumpling of some sort, and for this reason, Thuribaldi is often invoked in prayers of protection against burritos.

Everyone knows what the fuschia cord and tassle means.

He was also a 14th degree Freemason.

To be fair, nail painting technology has advanced by nearly 1000 years from the days when people would just dunk half their foot in a bucket of red ochre and called it a day.

Goodwill on 183 and Metric, where all truly good things come, and where, ultimately, they will go.



Now, you’re probably saying “Great, another one of those.” But let me tell you, this is vastly different from the other chess-influenced, poker-chip-headed dowelmonsters that you’ve seen before. Unless you’ve been to Dowelmonstercon, in which case, you’ve probably seen this already.

This one has a red button.

Which is for the best, if it didn’t, its stickers would probably fall down around its ankles. And we’d never learn what Einstein, Helen Keller, and Lincoln share in common. Adventure. Daring. Imagination. They all wore chess pieces on their head and had strange womanly faces, and intimidated their rivals with dangerous peg-arms. Sometimes, they would flail them around wildly, and shout “Danger, Will Robinson!” Except for Einstein, who might possibly have shouted “Sie sind in Gefahr, William Robinson!” Einstein had options.

My money is on a Cubist protest of last year’s cancellation of the Brazillian World Cup match on account of giant Anthrax bacillus. Although I’m not sure what the suggestive red thing is. There’s not a lot about this picture that I’m sure of. Is the black swirly part of the picture, or a condemnation of the picture? Are those floaty things bacteria? Ice cubes? Throat losenges? Weltschmerz? Is the fellow so dynamically screaming “Noooo!” a soccer player, tennis player, or wearing boxer-briefs and a Hanes tee shirt and getting ready for bed? Where does all this take place? The screaming void? Someone’s lawn? In a giant cup of egg drop soup?

So many mysteries.

Dowel-thing from Savers on South Lamar, strange art from Goodwill on 2222, Austin